PR Protocol

By Chris Roush
January 26, 2009

The recent case of Apple CEO Steve Jobs and his illness that has caused him to step away from the job for six months – and the fact that company PR people repeatedly said his health was fine – should cause business reporters everywhere to reassess their relationships with corporate spokespeople.

To quickly recap, Jobs’ health has been a source of speculation for months as he has appeared to have lost weight when he has made public appearances. He also did not make his regular appearance at trade show. But journalists who cover the company were repeatedly told that nothing was wrong.

In fact there was something wrong, and Jobs announced earlier this month that he was leaving the company to take better care of his health. The journalists who reported that nothing was wrong with his health – primarily because that was the company’s response – were left with egg on their face.

I’ve had some experience in dealing with corporate PR types for big companies like Apple. For years, I covered Coca-Cola and Home Depot. And as any business reporter who has covered a company with a carefully crafted image and a well-known CEO can attest it’s a constant battle to wade through the spin that emanates from these businesses.

True, there are lots of corporate PR people who can be valuable sources. I’ve had PR people tell me things about their companies that probably would have gotten them fired if their bosses knew.

But trusting PR people can cause lots of problems. As a business journalist, you’ve got to remember that they’re being paid – often more than the reporter – to present the company’s perspective on issues that affect it.

It only takes one time to realize when you’ve been had. I’ve had PR people flat out lie to me before, just like what’s happened in the Apple/Jobs case.

And any self-respecting business journalist in such a situation needs to take the following steps: Convey in the strongest way possible to the company that lying – whether by commission or omission – will not be tolerated and should result in the lie being exposed by publishing it.

Even more important, the reporter should realize that the vast majority of facts that they gather for any story should come from outside the company whenever possible. Use the corporate PR people simply to confirm the facts that you know, and to get a comment about them. In very few cases should the PR representatives of a company be relied upon as the major source for a story.

There is a saying among journalists from my part of the country that rings true here and should be applied by all business reporters: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”

In other words, don’t trust what a company PR person says, even if it’s your mother.

Copyright © 2009 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism